I'm not going to do any forecasting just yet as there are too many variables and uncertainties. My views are for the most part very much aligned with Torillian except the numbers - that this generation of traditional consoles/portable consoles will be smaller than the last since gaming is spread around a record number of devices. I also believe this generation will be around 5 years which also means the traditional consoles wont have enough time to gather huge numbers. 

As for Nintendo and their ability to replicate the strategy employed with 3DS ie; releasing a quality exclusive every month? If they can't do that in 2014, then they will fail to gather enough momentum to facilitate growth the way they did with 3DS. So if Nintendo manage to entice the family market and the Nintendo fans in 2014, it will do just fine.

XBO and PS4 will chase exactly the same market as before but this time i dont believe it will be 50-50. It will most likely be 30-70, as i feel PS4 is cannibilising some of XBO's sales. But a pricedrop for XBO real soon could change all that.

I know that you want Nintendo to change or die, so what do you want Nintendo to change into? How do you think this generation will pan out?

Wow, I wasn't expecting such balanced comments from someone that follows John Lucas and that divides the videogaming world into Nintendo believers and non-believers. Now I'm curious to know how can you believe in the balanced scenario you just described and John Lucas' insane predictions at the same time.

As for the Wii U in 2014, how can it have 1 quality first-party per month? Has any Nintendo home console achieved such a thing in any year?

Precisely. How would I want them to change? I want Nintendo to be cutting-edge again (as they were with NES and SNES). The videogaming world has been changing (becoming more demanding) and Nintendo just got stuck in the past (thus not meeting the demands of their old-school fans anymore). To give you some examples:

1 - In NES times, graphics were very primitive and the best attempt to draw plumber would result into something like Mario. Among the generations, characters, objects and levels became more and more sophisticated (3D, more polygons, better textures, etc.) and the way Nintendo has soften the evolution pace (compared to the rest of the industry) and clinged to their IPs has naturally resulted into cartoonish graphics (which could be mostly effective in the kindergarten niche) while the new cutting-edge developers evolved to realistic HD graphics.

2 - In NES times, environments were very primitive and the best attempt to create a racing game would result into a Kart game...well, I think you know the end of the story. Same thing for Mario Tennis, Golf, Baseball, etc.

3 - In NES and SNES times, gameplay was quite different from what it is nowadays. Many "reality simplifications" were needed and some were purposely and creatively introduced to accommodate the others. One of them was the lack of voice acting, which was replaced by balloons with little sentences. When voice acting became a possibility, the cutting-edge developers evolved into that while other devs got clinged to the "balloon-based" archictectures they had designed for their RPGs (for example). One of them was again Nintendo, with Pokemon and many others.

4 - Speaking about Pokemon, it's interesting how Nintendo never got the guts to do a real 3D Pokemon games with 3D gameplay (find pokemons that are really roaming the environment, really throw pokeballs to catch them, be the pokemon in the fights rather than just choosing the attack, etc.).

5 - Nintendo got clinged to Mario and the first concepts created for it. This is very different from a dev that maintains the IP but continues the evolution. To show you how different it is, think about Mario 64 and GTA II...now think about Mario Sunshine and GTA III...now Mario Galaxy and GTA IV...now Mario 3D World and GTA V. What do you see? Personally, I see one being the old same old game eventually evolving in some areas while the other being hugely evolved in almost every aspect.

6 - In a more comprehensive view, Nintendo got clinged to most (if not all) their IPs and the first concepts created for them. Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, Pokemon, etc. are the old same old games while new IPs like Wii Sports, Wii Fit and Wii Party don't seem to get any generational evolution from Wii to WiiU.

Nintendo wasn't able to impress anymore. When I say "impress" I mean to shake the industry, something that Wii actually didn't do. Wii caught the attention of people that were outside of the market. The big userbase of old-school videogame lovers just upgraded their PS2/Xbox for PS3/X360 or their PC for a better one.

When I think about the videogaming evolution, I see 2 types of games: the ones that are at the "trunk" and the ones that are at the "branches". The "trunk" makes the whole industry to go higher and it's made of games like Half-Life, Project Gotham, The Getaway, Crysis, Total War, rFactor, Grand Theft Auto, LittleBigPlanet, LA Noire, The Crew, etc. (they will not necessarily enter into the Guinness book but they could be in a kind of "Benchmark List"). A "branch" expands some part of the industry or just consolidates it and it's made of games like Halo, MotorStorm, Command & Conquer, FIFA, Killzone, Red Dead Redemption, Uncharted, Forza, Heavy Rain, etc. (they either innovate in some specific area or they just do better what others have already done). Nintendo games are neither at the trunk nor at some branch of the evolution tree. They're just underground like any retro game.

What do I want from Nintendo? I want them to put their BILLIONS into the trunk of that tree. I want to see them doing what neither Sony, nor Microsoft, nor Valve, nor Crytek, nor Ubisoft can do, not because they lack of willingness to amaze gamers, but because they don't have such money. When I looked at The Crew and Tom Clancy's The Division I became amazed with such innovations and evolutionary leaps. I want to be 5 times more amazed than that by a company that has 10 or 20 times more money to invest on bold concepts and competent studios to implement those concepts.

That's the change I want to see on Nintendo and if they did that they would be applauded by the entire industry.

I don't see any winner but the PS4. Sony won the generation with PS1 and PS2 and maintained the same commitment with the PS3. There were just 2 problems: Blu-ray and Cell, which made the console to be very expensive at the beginning and hard to drop it to a decent price (this made its first 3 years to be a nightmare). Still, PS3 will end as a close 2nd. Now that they came up with a console free from major problems, the competitors can't do much to avoid the PS4 winning the generation.

WiiU is definitely a lesser "threat" than Wii was and XOne seems to be the new PS3 (the expensive alternative that is mostly focused on exclusives). To make a difference, since I don't think WiiU and XOne will have twin sales (like PS3 and X360), WiiU has almost exhausted its trump cards while XOne seems to be full of them.

WiiU had already its first price-cut (this is usually a powerful move from Nintendo, since it's very rare when they do so and it often produces a sales explosion), the New Super Mario Bros title, the tech demo titles (seems to be only Nintendo Land this time around), most of the Wii tech demo sequels (Wii Fit, etc.) and now there's not much left besides Mario Kart, Smash Bros and Zelda.

XOne seems to be the one with more room for price cuts, a lot of exclusives yet to be revealed and the Illumni Room tech yet to be presented and launched.

PS4 still keeps the launch deal too and will be more than prepared to do the first price cut when the time comes (within 2 or 3 years). It also seems to have a lot of exclusives yet to be revealed and the Gaikai tech yet to be launched.

Above all, Sony and Microsoft have an attitude of avoiding being lagged behind at almost any cost while Nintendo doesn't bother that much to massively fail (to assure profits is always the priority). I think this will be the main reason for the WiiU to be 3rd (maybe with 20% market share). XOne will be 2nd with far more sales (maybe with 35% market share). PS4 will be 1st (maybe with 45% market share).

They don't have the majority of home console market share right now (weekly or LTD), so how will they always have it during this gen?

May I throw out a prediction too?


3DS 80M-120M
PS4 65M-70M
Wii-U 60M-65M
Xbone 30M-50M
Vita 20M-35M


Wild-card: Steambox 20M-80M

OK. Before 2013 ends, I want to address the bulletpoints Mummelmann made after my mega-sized rebuttal.
He wrote these bulletpoints on December 16, 2013 & I'm going to address his bulletpoints using his own words to prove my point.
As 2014 begins I'll deal with the series of posts he made afterwards.

Mummelmann:
* John Lucas is attempting to box in the argument and force me to argue on his conditions by trying to force the parameters through "banning" certain words and definitions from the debate, elevating himself by stating his superiority without ever presenting why he is actually superior. Textbook so far.

Me:
No, I responded to the words you used & argued each topic ELABORATELY point by point, line by line.
I argued from YOUR framework. I argued in the terms YOU set. I countered your arguments on your terms.
That's why you see me put your actual quotes in their entirety throughout that oversized so there could be no mistaking of me taking your words out of context.
Each topic heading came off of a point you were making or a certain string of words you said.

When you said, "A lot of people are claiming that Nintendo make such amazing 1st party games that 3rd parties wouldn’t be able to compete, that is hardly a nice environment to publish on..."
I refuted that showing the past of Nintendo promoting 3rd party games in Nintendo Power, showing them promote a 3rd party game Atlus's Shin Megami Tensei IV in a Club Nintendo deal.
You conflated Sony's & Microsoft's practice of letting the 3rd party do practically whatever they want with Nintendo providing a bad environment for the 3rd parties to develop on. I disagreed with that conflation.
I argued that Nintendo's standards made the 3rd parties a better game developer in the first place which shows how their 3rd party games once stood as equals to Nintendo's 1st party.
I argued that Nintendo creates platforms of lasting value that the 3rds refused to help cultivate yet still want all the rewards for minimal effort.
I argued that the 3rd party's practices outside of the influence of Nintendo resulted in the situation some of their games experience on Nintendo platforms.
That it's not the environment Nintendo provides but the attitude the 3rd parties take to Nintendo platforms that give them those particular results.
Yet if they fail miserably on a Microsoft or Sony platform they are willing to keep plugging away while still giving Nintendo little to no consideration.

I saw the conditions your arguments took & I argued within that structure. Within YOUR parameters.
That's why this took so long to put together. I had to keep it on-topic & in your structure.

Mummelmann:
* John Lucas doesn't "believe" in architectural variables, some resulting in varying degrees of ease or difficulty in development.

Me:
The hardware argument is tired. These are all machines & you can get a machine to do what you need it to do.
Each console is designed differently by default. That is nothing new.
You can't count the power of a console by components alone. It is the INTERPLAY of those components that matter.
If you focus on CPUs or focus on RAM, you miss the point that each different design may be able to achieve similar effects in different ways.
One may move information faster through its pipelines while another creates a broader street for more information to pass through.
Some use raw power, some use specific structure optimized for efficiency.
Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks. More than one way to skin a cat.

There's architectural variables & there's money to be made.
"Hard to develop for" is an excuse. If the opportunity was ripe, they will DEAL with those hardships because of the potential returns.
It MUST have been hard to make the Genesis version of Mortal Kombat to look comparable to the SNES version.
I mean Super Nintendo could put out 32,768 colors while Genesis could only put out 512.
Somehow they made it work, didn't they? Not QUITE as robust as the SNES version but very comparable even with all of that limitation.
It was hard to make NES versions of arcade games like Double Dragon feel as close to the arcades as possible.
Somehow they did it. They were different but similar enough to get their point across.
It was DAMN sure hard to translate arcades of early 80s to the Atari 2600, Mattel Intellivision, & the Colecovision.
Somehow they persevered & made something approaching those arcade classics.
Shoot it was hard to make CHESS work on the Atari 2600! Thought to be impossible! Somehow it was done.

Read this excerpt from Wikipedia about Atari 2600's Video Chess.

"At first, the idea of chess on the Atari 2600 was considered to be impossible due to the limitations of the technology at the time. For example, Atari had to overcome sprite limitations; the Atari 2600 was only capable of displaying three sprites in a row, or six (such as in Space Invaders) with the right programming. The eight-piece-wide standard chess board exceeded this limitation. To rectify this, Bob Whitehead developed a technique known as "Venetian blinds" where the position of each sprite changes every scan line; this allows for eight or more sprites in a row.^[1] Additionally, the concept of bank switching ROMs was invented for earlier prototypes of Video Chess that were larger than four kilobytes in size, however the released version ended up fitting the standard 4K size.^[2]"

Developers had heart once upon a time. Limitations used to be a challenge to make it work DESPITE the supposed impossibilities.
Where there's a will, there's a way. There ARE limits but I guarantee those developers didn't even approach those limits with Wii.
They weren't trying to. Instead they made excuses instead of becoming a part of a massive money-making opportunity.
That's why they have to layoff so many folks & go bankrupt.
Wii U has a VERY easy architecture to create games on yet you still don't see many of the 3rd party publishers/developers flocking to it.
It has nothing to do with "easy or hard to develop for". It has always been politics.

Mummelmann:
* He doesn't "believe" in demographics.

Me:
No, I just don't believe "casual" & "hardcore" are accurate terms to describe those demographics.
When I pointed out the categories of Nintendo eShop's 2013 Holiday Gift Guide on Wii U saying "kids", "teens", "grown-up kids", "family" that shows Nintendo's take on demographics.
I ALSO pointed out that Nintendo tries to serve multiple demographics all at one time which is why I said they make games for EVERYBODY.
It's smart market sense anyway since you are multiplying instead of dividing your audience.
Big Brain Academy at first glance may look like just a game for schoolkids but its difficulty rises & falls dynamically based on your ability.
It can get VERY hard for adults in short time yet can stay easy enough for a kid to play just the same.
Many of their games are like this that's why you rarely see difficulty options on Nintendo games.

I maintain that those who keep looking at the business with the lens of "hardcore vs. casual" will NEVER understand how the business really works.
KungKras recently posted a link to an article debunking this foolish division in a thread titled
The origin of "casual/hardcore gamers" and other industry bullshit

The article linked in the thread is called Why Marketers Fear The Female Geek written by anjinanhut.
She shows how marketing tries to make male & female products over things that are not necessarily male or female.
Shows marketers making artificial divisions & creating a false reality, an illusion of difference that is not necessarily there.
Both men & women use soap & shampoo but now we got Dove for Men & Herbal Essences with women having orgasms from washing their hair.

There are just gamers. Some gamers are sports gamers. Some gamers are RPG gamers. Some gamers play a little of everything.
Girl gamers don't necessarily play Style Savvy & fashion games. Guy gamers don't necessarily shy away from Cooking Mama.
Some girls like to play Madden & First-Person Shooters. Some guys like dating sims. It's all over the board.
But if you make it like Guy gamers play this & Girl gamers play that, that's when you fail to see the real demographics.
Demographics exist but Casual & Hardcore are not demographics. They're BS marketing divisions.

Mummelmann:
* He refuses to take a proper stance on a couple ethics questions and instead dances around the subject and deviates into long-winded philosophy which doesn't pertain to the matter in any meaningful way.

Me:
What ethics? Whose ethics?
If you're talking about Nintendo in the 1980s with the NES, yeah I dismissed that whole thing about the big bad evil Nintendo.
Before I thought in depth of it, I used to buy a little bit of that argument. When you look at it further it doesn't hold up.
You go into a place of business there are going to be certain standards you must abide before entering.
No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service is one of them. Nintendo set their standards because they were trying to revive an industry.
The 3rd parties don't make platforms, they just supply platform makers. That's their role.
The NES wasn't the only platform in town. There was something in Japan you might have heard of called the MSX (the Microsoft Sony X).
PC platforms & other console makers were around. And they weren't minor league players either.
Nintendo didn't kidnap these 3rd parties. They joined Nintendo willingly & thus accepted Nintendo's standards.
One refused & instead of complaining they made their own platform with NEC. That company was Hudson Soft.

It's the same thing when a performer signs up with a record company or a venue.
There's a contract written up to commit the performer to the company or the venue to ensure that the company or venue get return on their investment.
I use Motown's equipment to make my album then I walk out on Motown trying to have DefJam profit from my Motown-produced product.
I agree to perform on these dates in Caesar's Palace. Then on the dates I'm supposed to perform I suddenly go to Radio City Music Hall & perform there.
Nintendo says you're using my platform, my development tools, you're gonna perform exclusively for my platform with only 5 games a year.
It is then up to the 3rd party to agree or disagree with those terms.
If they disagree, go to the many other platforms available & make a stand there.
But since Nintendo created such a hot opportunity, you didn't see the 3rd parties try to go anywhere else.
When Sega challenged Nintendo greatly in the Mega Drive/Genesis era & they had another hot platform to work with, they STILL worked with Nintendo.
I showed a 3rd party who turned into a 2nd party named Rareware whose former staff look back on their Nintendo days fondly.
Hardly sounds like a big bad evil company to me.

We got a company who tried to do away with game ownership/trade/resale with the XBox One & you're so down on a company that tried their damndest to restore customer & retailer confidence in the whole videogame business. Who tried to restore Quality to the business.
Nintendo WAS controlling. And it's EXACTLY that control which allowed you to even have a videogame business today.
Once again, you're welcome.

Mummelmann:
* He links a bunch of unrelated youtube content to undeline opposing arguments to arguments I never made (the commercial bit is the main culprit here).

Me:
Do you even remember what you write, man?
Here's a reminder of what you wrote:

"Look at their advertising over the past three decades; where companies like Sony and Microsoft and independents often focus on effects, visuals, sound and other, perhaps superficial things, they choose to focus the presentation on the product.

Nintendo have a long history of panning shots where they show ecstatic kids playing games, this isn’t because they have such immense heart and love your smile more than others, it is simply a marketing ploy to draw in young customers, they focus on the implicit euphoria of owning Nintendo products, instilling a sense of “can’t miss this, kiddo!” rather than focusing on the product."

You just made a giant spiel contrasting Sony's & Microsoft's advertising with Nintendo's.
You pretty much said that Nintendo is manipulating the viewers by showing the reactions of people.
Pretty much implied that these types of commercials & ads are disingenuous of Nintendo.

So what do I do? I once again argue in your framework & dismantle it.
You said that Sony & Microsoft focus on effects, visuals, sound, & product.
You said that Nintendo focuses on ecstatic kids, implicit euphoria WITHOUT focusing on the product.
I AGREED & said that it was a SUPERIOR way to deliver their products. That it was a more GENUINE way.
I used your very own words to hang you with. Sony & Microsoft focus on product, effects, visuals, sound AKA Technology.
Nintendo focuses on kids' ecstasy & euphoria AKA People & Emotions.
I showed numerous examples of Nintendo commercials showcasing this reality.
I underlined the whole thing showing that it reflects the philosophy of their entire console & game design.
That tech is a MEANS to an end not THE END as it is with Sony & Microsoft.

Two companies started out in tech fields & naturally reflect their origins.
Another company started out in play fields & naturally reflect their origins.
Nintendo has always been a PLAY company from day one making those hanafuda cards.
That's why they were able to naturally transition into toys (another PLAY field) & videogames (another PLAY field) while they couldn't transition into instant noodles, taxi service, vacuum cleaners, & love hotels (love hotels is a SEXUAL PLAY similar but not quite the same).

Cards, toys, & games is what Nintendo is all about. That's why they were so stubborn with the cartridge format (CARD-tridge) for the Nintendo 64.
They still have game cards & SD cards in their home consoles & handhelds.
Wii U has a initial setup screen asking to tap icons of Spades, Hearts, Clubs, & Diamonds.
New Super Mario Bros. U's Boost Mode has you summon platforms adorned with Spades, Hearts, Club, & Diamonds.
The Nintendo DS released a game called Master of Illusion complete with a deck of actual Nintendo playing cards.
They give away playing cards on Club Nintendo—Western & Hanafuda styles.
Wii Music is more like a musical toy than a game. And so is Electroplankton. So are certain extras in the WarioWare games.
Nintendo licenses plushies & LEGOs of its characters to be released in the toy aisle. There's even a Super Mario Chess set.
Even the way Nintendo conducts business & delivers conferences is playful.
They hold their cards close to chest just like an experienced card player & dazzle you like a magician showing you card tricks.

They USE tech to deliver card, toy, & game. They don't use game to deliver tech, effects, visuals, & sound.
When you play with cards or toys or games it is ALWAYS a social experience. A people-focused experience.
The interplay between peoples. So it's no surprise why Nintendo is focused more on people than their tech.
And that's what makes them successful in the end. That's why they are not in awe of their tech.
They only see it as a way to deliver more fun, more PLAY to PEOPLE.

And to show that this intention IS genuine (as if their conduct doesn't already show it) & that the results ARE genuine, I punchline the topic with the N64 Kids hollering ecstatically euphorically over the Nintendo 64.
That's a real video. That's a real reaction. And that's why Nintendo will always remain the leader of the business.
Somehow they have the ability to make these mundane machines feel like more than machines.
That takes a certain kind of magic. Something is genuine there & that's why you see people proudly wearing NES controllers on their T-shirts today.

Mummelmann:
* Due to my harsh language, I've made him all but come out and expose his Messiah complex, it's actually scary to witness.

Me:
Messiah complex? No, what you're doing is trying to make a caricature out of me to dismiss what I have to say.
I ran down every single one of your points line by line in VERY elaborate fashion & you have no valid answer to my comments.
I argued in your framework & defeated your arguments in excruciating detail.
All of your comments lately have run on the mentality "Due to my superior ability & master mind, I have made him come out, I have made him do this & do that".
That sounds like a God complex to me. As if you're the puppeteer with the puppet on a string.
The Chessmaster moving your pawns.

The truth is you have to resort to these tactics because your arguments have run out.
You can't attack the message so you attack the messenger.
Have fun with your caricature but when you're done with playing with that, you can rejoin me in debating the topics at hand.

Mummelmann:
* He thinks, apparently in all sincerity, that everyone should have the same taste in gaming as him, including me, a staggering show of incredible elitism.

Me:
Hmm. The following are words from Mummelmann.

"Now, as for me? Do I love all this? No! I hate the idea that Hollywood is the primary inspiration for games, I hate QTE’s, hand-holding, ridiculous AI and other bullshit and I consider phone and tablet gaming nothing but cancer on the industry, pulling quality down along with the Hollywood model."

Phone & tablet gaming is a cancer on the industry, Mummelmann says. But he calls me an elitist.
This is what I said about mobile gaming & other platforms in general.

"I don't necessarily hate the mobile platform & I am always open to any avenue a developer can have to express his/her vision.
The open-ended nature of mobile DOES tend to pack a lot of trash on this platform but it's not all bad.
There are good games on the smartphones & tablets. There are good games on the PC.
There are good games on the PlayStations & XBoxes.
What I'm concerned about is the EXCLUSION of Nintendo from the discussion."

Which one of those statements sounds elitist & sounds like everyone should have the same taste?
I also said this in another topic later in that rebuttal.

"The one who plays Candy Crush Saga is JUST as much a gamer as one who plays Mario. Those who play the Facebook games are JUST as much a gamer as those who play World of Warcraft. Those who only play the perennial sports games like Madden & NBA 2K are JUST as much a gamer as those who play indie games.
And because I don't believe in this concept of "Non-Gamer" means that I DIDN'T resent the emergence of the PlayStation when it expanded the scope of gaming. I don't resent the emergence of the smartphones & tablets as a gaming platform. I don't resent the emergence of the browser based games. I don't resent Steam as a platform. I didn't resent Nintendo's Touch Generations titles like Brain Age & Wii Fit when it brought people who never played games to the pastime.
The more gamers the merrier."

Who's elitist now? The guy who calls a Candy Crush Saga gamer as just as legit as a Mario gamer or the guy who says the phone & tablet gaming is a cancer on the industry?
And he takes this statement I made & totally misses the point.

"They ALSO want Nintendo's standards to be the Rule not the Exception. Mummelmann, you should want the same too."

Somehow he reads that as I think he should only play Nintendo games & only like the games I like.
Rockstar follows Nintendo's standards by not putting out games until they make signifcant improvements or advancements instead of banking on the yearly installment deal.
That's why Grand Theft Auto V sold so much so fast.
That's why PS2's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is #16 on the all-time best-sellers list.
They also do different things & diversify. They put out L.A. Noire, Table Tennis, Manhunt, & Red Dead Redemption.
Rockstar & Nintendo haven't gotten along since the N64 days when they were DMA Design.
Yet Rockstar's quality levels approach Nintendo's levels because follow tenets Nintendo is known for.
I personally believe Rockstar is one of the best & most creative 3rd parties out there.

He complains about a Hollywood-ized industry, I show him the antidote to that, he takes it as if I'm elitist & thinking he should play the same games as me.
Hey, all I can do is show the word history.

Mummelmann:
* He thinks that the development cost of a game is affected either way by how many copies you print... no comment needed there.

Me:
It takes money in every aspect of the game-making, game-shipping, game-stocking, game-selling process.
Why is this such a strange statement? They allocate resources for programmers to build the code, for artists to conceptualize & actualize the figures & backgrounds, for musicians & sound men to deliver the audio, for factories to make copies of the finished product, for warehouses to store these copies, for planes/trains/automobiles to transport these copies over-air/overseas/on-the-road to docks/warehouses/retailers, for marketers to advertise the product & get it to sell.
Money is parceled out for each & every step of this process.
When they develop games, they can share the resources they make in production for each platform assigning this team to make this version for PlayStation, this one for XBox, this one for Nintendo. They can & DO forecast what they believe each console can sell & make shipments accordingly.
That's what Activision did when they made Call of Duty games for the DS. They assigned a team to create a DS version & allocated the amount of stock they believed would best sell for that platform.
All of this is under production costs.

People in the food business, in the clothing business, in the soap business, in ANY business do the very same things.
They may allocate 300,000 of a product to one retailer in a Southern region while allocating 1,000,000 of a product to the same retailer in a Northeastern region.
They may allocate 10,000 to this store while allocating 200,000 to another store.
They have metrics that figure out what sells which in which retailer, which region, which season.
But you notice that the smartest businesses make sure there's at least some of their stock in EVERY store.
Frito-Lay doesn't just ship their Doritos to Wal-Mart. They make sure their Doritos are seen in every store they can put it.
Some people don't go to Wal-Mart, some people don't go to Kroger's but no matter where they go they can get some Doritos.
It's in a company's best interests not to arbitrarily deny a retailer/platform for trivial matters.

While a Wii U version of a particular game may not be the best-selling of the versions, you GUARANTEE not to get any business by not putting the game on the platform at all.
And after awhile if you keep not stocking your product in Nintendo's stores, those Nintendo customers will just buy other products & get used to them.
Instead of Doritos, they'll get used to Taco Flacos. You'll be locking yourself out of a hot market.
If it sells weaker on a Nintendo platform, just publish a smaller amount of stock where it can sell through.
Who knows the shorter supply may increase demand where you can publish more. Won't know if you don't try.

Mummelmann:
* He gives me a proper new-age psych evaluation, in which he concludes that I am traumatized and depressed.

Me:
You sounded cynical so I addressed your cynicism.
You make a stereotype of business as nothing more than greedy money-grubbers.
You make it sound like a company who exchanges money for a product can't have any other motivation than that.
There ARE a lot of businesses like that but every business is not like that.

The following is the some of the most cynical garbage I have ever heard.

"Then there’s this notion of a Nintendo that is somehow more relevant, loving and caring than others, they have the only true passion for games and gaming. Why? Because they have different art direction? All other companies are just evil bastards who don’t like anything but your money and they’re too dense to see that they’re ruining the industry because Nintendo are the only ones who understand “what’s really going on”.

Nintendo are, believe it or not, a company with investors, they love to pocket your change as much as the next company, a change in color-palette doesn’t change that.

Which is more ethical? Don’t think for one second that Nintendo are some benign saint who swooped down to earth so that grandma and her cancerous grandkid could enjoy gaming together, laughing and living it up like a fairytale; they want grandma’s money and they want the cancer-kid money (offended? I’m making a point), they want everyone’s money like everyone else does, they’re running a business!"

I'm tired of that 'hip cynic' crap. People put that mess up as a shield.
It's safer to think the world is all dog-eat-dog than to think that genuine actions still exist in the world.
And they don't wanna take the chance on making a mistake so they hide behind the shield of cynicism. It's cowardly.

Nintendo's actions over the decades have proven they care about more than just the dollar, the yen, the euro.
There's no incentive to create a physically-durable lasting piece of hardware when people are buying multiple XBox 360s over & over after they break.
Any heartless company that you're proposing Nintendo to be would stop giving a damn & do exactly what Microsoft gets rewarded on doing.
When people pay for online like with XBox Live why in the hell would Nintendo insist on a free service like the Nintendo Network?
They were thinking about changing to a paid model. Seems they weren't appreciated for keeping it free.
In the end, they said no, it's free.

Nintendo is a company with integrity. These kind of businesses still exist as hard as it is for you to believe.
With no valid challengers in the handheld realm, it would be easy for Nintendo to artificially jack up the prices.
Nope, even with the GBA prices remained fair. Mass market as always.
Just because an entity get money doesn't make them phony, doesn't make them heartless.
I showed countless examples of famous & unfamous people doing a job, getting paid for it, but enjoying the job BEYOND the paycheck.
The honest truth is Nintendo gives us a bargain. The best developer in the world selling their high quality works for a low price.
You pay big for Bose speakers. You pay big for Beats Audio by Dr. Dre. You pay big for Corvettes, Lamborghinis, & Testarossas.
You pay big for Rolls-Royces. You pay big to stay in Trump Hotel. Cashmere costs & so does silk. Diamonds don't come cheap.
Any big-name designer is charging top dollar for their clothes. Living costs in Beverly Hills & Manhattan is too rich for you.
Yet Nintendo, the premiere name in gaming, gives you all that level of quality for a price most people can afford.

They give a damn & it shows. I'm man enough to recognize it. I'm man enough to celebrate it.
I don't need to hide behind the Cynic's Shield.

Mummelmann:
* He backs up his mostly philosophical arguments with obviously made-up and anecdotal "conversion" stories, including ones about himself and even states that I will soon convert.

Me:
I showed the link to Metallicube's post. It's right there.
At last, Nintendo (and Best Buy) have convinced this veteran cynical Nintendo fan to cave in and pick up a Wii U. My impressions.

You can't dance around that. It's not made-up. He's right there. Talk to him.
And as for me. Whether you want to believe it or not, I wasn't always in line with Nintendo's direction with Wii U.
I mention that from the very first post in this thread.
I exampled my gaming history for you to SHOW you how wrong you were.
You're too busy making a caricature of me instead of dealing with the real person.
You said I hated PlayStation's emergence in the mid-1990s. No, I didn't & I detailed my history showing this.

I look at your signature & how you have not changed it.
While the hecklers are lambasting me about the 12 million call, I see you have 11.5 million in your year-end prediction.
Virtually the same number & you're holding it until the end just like I'm doing.
I'm gonna find it funny in a few years to see many of the people who ran down Wii U start championing it in the coming years.
Yeah & I'm predicting you're gonna be one of them, Mummelmann. Doggone right.
Right now you're just an antagonist for antagonist's sake. You just wanna argue for the sake of arguing.
You said it yourself either on somebody's wall or somewhere in this thread.
This is just a show from you & I see right through it.

Just like many crowed doom & gloom for the 3DS & then changed their tune as the library built up, the same will happen for the Wii U.
Very predictable. People are fickle. That's a truth about humanity. Very few stick by their words indefinitely.
I know this console is capable of greatness & it will example that throughout this generation.
One by one the naysayers will relent & they will begin to appreciate what Nintendo is doing with Wii U.
Just a matter of time.

Mummelmann:
* He goes on a long rant on why he didn't post here for a few years, constructing a saintly persona from a low-ish background that has defeated the odds all the while deflecting how someone doesn't have any time at all to write a single word on a forum they used to love despite working mostly on the internet. Basically, he's making himself a Nintendo personified, or Jesus if you will.

Me:
Since you seemed to have trouble believing that people get busy & don't have time to post on a VGChartz forum (as if that's the most important thing to do in life) I detailed the entire history not necessarily for you but for all of those who may have wondered why I drifted off from the site.
It was also for the readers to get a sense of who I am, where I come from, & how this shapes my views.
Definitely shows you that I was not running away from the VGChartz forum.
It was cathartic to get that out anyway. Been on my chest for awhile.
Keep on making the silly caricatures, Mummelmann. Perhaps you're not able to deal with realities of a situation & prefer to take comfort in abstractions.

Mummelmann:
* He believes that Nintendo are the ones who set the standard in the industry, but he also says that everyone else refuses to follow this standard, inevitably making it not a standard by the very definition of the word (this is just one contradiction but among the worst of the bunch).

Me:
Yep, Nintendo's always the standard maker. Sega did its BEST when it was trying to match Nintendo or beat Nintendo at its own game.
That's why Sonic was so good. That's why Sonic Colors was so good. That's why Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games is Sega's best-selling game ever.
Those who refuse to follow that standard lose billions, layoff staff, & go bankrupt.
How many times do i have to tell you that Nintendo designed this business out of the ashes of the Crash?
Yeah you may make the mistake of seeing 2 out of 3 console platform makers do things a certain way & see that as the standard.
Quantity & Quality are two different things. It only takes one to set the standard.
Everything Nintendo does eventually gets co-opted by their competition.
They may go wayward for awhile but in the end they follow the leader.

That's why Sony changed their Walkman for 21st Century approach for the PSP into Long Live Game with Kevin Butler.
That's why you got Kudo Tsunoda out there getting that little girl giggling at Skittles at the E3 2010 Kinectimals display (Nintendogs?).
The PS4 isn't pushing a new media format like every single PlayStation before it & they're half-and-half on whether to promote graphics or not.
"The time when horsepower alone made an important difference is over??"
We got Microsoft making Kinect mandatory for the XBox One much like Nintendo made the Wiimote mandatory for the Wii.
Kinect Sports to answer Wii Sports. PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale to answer Super Smash Bros.
The examples are too numerous to list. I'll be here all day. The controllers they use are another example.
Nintendo's imprint all over that & so much more.

Mummelmann:
* He still has no explanation for how developers will save money  making games for a HD console (with a similar CPU structure to the 360 and PS3) and seems to believe that lower power consumption in chipsets means that the price of developing textures and other visual bits for them is lower. Yeah.

Me:
It's HOW things are done, Mummelmann. The only thing Nintendo's losing is time. They underestimated the time of development which is costing them in the short term. But as the games come out it corrects itself.
Wii U won't break developer's bank to produce for it.
Mummelmann forgets about all the free middleware tools Nintendo offers including Unity.
The way they design their console & the way they implement game production on those machines will make it a more affordable choice.

Oh here's word from a major publisher/developer. Some company out of France, you might have heard of them.
I think they make those wascally wabbit games starring Raymond.
Developing for the Wii U has been surprisingly inexpensive for Ubisoft
Excerpt:

You'd think becoming the leading third party publisher for Nintendo's Wii U console would be expensive, but according to Ubisoft's CEO Yves Guillemot, the company has not invested much money in R&D for it.

Speaking to investors, Guillemot revealed just how cheap - relatively - it is to develop new games for the console. Console ports are even less, he added.

"Out of seven games we are planning to launch, five games are ports, so those are games for which there is quite small reinvestments to do," Guillemot told investors (via NeoGAF).

Guillemot did note that the two original Wii U titles, ZombiU and Rayman Legends, are the most expensive to develop, but that the investment is still significantly less than that of some of their other multiplatform franchises, like Assassin's Creed - which also happens to be one of the titles being ported to the Wii U.

Rather than big production value, Guillemot shared Ubisoft's strategy for innovation with the Wii U.

"Because as we've always said when there is such an innovation the need is not to have big production value but to concentrate on the innovation. This is what we are trying on Rayman and ZombiU."

"For the other five games, you are talking about small budget, I'd say of less than a million euro to make some of the ports, I'd estimate," he concluded. "So together I don't think we have a huge investment on the Wii U."

...Anything else you would like to add, Mummelmann?

Mummelmann:
* He has forgotten that the Gamecube and N64 was pretty much irrelevant and maintains that Nintendo has carried the industry since they started and to this day.

Me:
So irrelevant that their game & console design has shaped the other competitors immeasurably.
The analog stick, rumble, & 3D-space gaming, console-born FPS, popularizing 4-controllers per console, Wavebird's wirelessness.
I mean there's a mobile game called Oceanhorn right now which is pretty much Zelda: Wind Waker from the Gamecube.
Reality is reality. Deal with it. Accept it. Nintendo shapes the industry. Nintendo's the root of the industry.
Facts are facts. The truth is the truth. And it will set you free.

This guy goes on & on with nonsense so I'm gonna just cut it off right here & deal with his full rebuttal in the new year.
One more thing...

On January 27, 2013, on my wall is a post from Mummelmann himself saying the following.

You should have a comeback, the forums miss you. I might not have agreed with a lot of things you said but thoroughly enjoyed your long and articulate posts, those kind of things are few and far inbetween in here now, we had some good times in '08 and '09. Come back, man!

All I can say to that is be careful what you wish for.
I'M BACK.

Happy New Year everybody!
John Lucas

One thing I like about John Lucas is when PS4 or X1 fanboyz enter his topic, they leave as Nintendo Fanboyz;

Mummelmann welcome to the club!

This post has been moderated by axumblade

I know replying to Lucas is usually Mummelman's thing, but I'm bored and have nothing better to do. Oh and if you're gonna respond then don't take 4 weeks to do so. This took me like 40 minutes. Learn how to edit and cut some of the fat off your posts. 

John Lucas, a lot of this is great, but I wish you would refrain from the personal jabs as well. It's not really part of the argument how cynical Mummelmann might be nor your analysis of it.

That said, strong comeback can't wait for the continuation. To the rest of you, no matter what you think about the topic at hand, does it not peak your interest a little bit extra when you see the last porter was Johnlucas?

I have to say, again he's put forward an interesting observation in contrasting Nintendo as a toy company making tech and the other two as tech companies making a toy. I also enjoy the thinking around why there are so many playing card references in Nintendo games. Good observation and an interesting thought. Hopefully the answer also puts to rest the claim of trying to frame the dabate and the cult of Lucas references people keep making. None of that is based on very solid reasoning in my opinion. 

Comments section below that interview video must be entertaining to read.

Not to step on Mummelmann's toes too much here, but this section stood out to me.

He has adressed both the metallicube point, and the part about his old prediction.

"No, he only recently took that position, he was very confident before it released and everyone who’s been around as long as I have, know this member and who he is; a massive Nintendo fan with eyes for nothing else. There was never any huge doubt; he was on board all along and only joined the theatre to avoid so much flack, especially since he was so loud and smug during the Wii days."

"Yeah, this is how you actually go down with the ship, John. I kept it so I could see it every day and learn something from it, I have overshot my Nintendo home consoles predictions for four years now, and it’s about time I learned, that’s why the sig stays."

You (JL) don't seem to be holding to your prediction for the same reason.  He's doing it as a reminder of mistakes he made, while you seem to be gung-ho about making the same mistakes again.

Also, while we are bringing up predictions from a year ago, the "veteran cynical Nintendo fan" who stated that $250 "was the price Nintendo needed to have any sort of shot over the competition" predicted 14 million for Wii U sales in 2013.  That would have put year end sales at ~16.25m.  Higher really because 2012 Wii U sales have been adjusted down since those predictions were made.  So considering a year ago he predicted far above the numbers you and Mummel predicted, I wouldn't really say he is a born again disciple.

Speaking of the 3DS, how is that 50 million prediction holding up?